Author Archive
Articles by Ryan Chittum | Email the Author
Audit Notes: News Corp./Wall Street Journal edition
Gerard Baker takes the reins of The Wall Street Journal
By Ryan Chittum Dec 4, 2012 at 06:50 AM
Robert Thomson will become CEO of the news-focused News Corp. (the other new company will be called Fox Group) after... More
Anti-paywall dead-enders
Why worry about evidence when you can argue against straw men?
By Ryan Chittum Dec 3, 2012 at 06:50 AM
In 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda was sent by the Japanese Army to the remote Philippine Island of Lubang with instructions... More
Audit Notes: pyramid people, Disney and ABC, no USA Today paywall
Roddy Boyd digs into a diet-shake pyramid scheme
By Ryan Chittum Nov 30, 2012 at 06:50 AM
The investigative journalist Roddy Boyd has some excellent reporting on a multilevel marketing company (read: pyramid scheme) called ViSalus: ViSalus... More
Hot air Rises Above on CNBC
An anchor pins a minor dip in stocks on the TV appearance of a minor politician
By Ryan Chittum Nov 30, 2012 at 12:41 AM
Rise Above, if you're among the 99.95 percent of the country who don't watch CNBC on a given day, is... More
Audit Notes: WaPo on Avandia, giving away the store, plutocrats
Report shows how drug research is corrupted by corporate money
By Ryan Chittum Nov 29, 2012 at 06:50 AM
The Washington Post's Peter Whoriskey has another outstanding story in his series on the Avandia drug scandal at GlaxoSmithKline and... More
Audit Notes: FT’s Fairhead is out; BofA CEO stonewalls; Rent a Quote
But Pearson says the paper is not for sale.
By Ryan Chittum Nov 28, 2012 at 06:50 AM
FT Group CEO Rona Fairhead got denied the top job at Pearson and so is stepping down as chairman and... More
Amazon sharecroppers
The Seattle Times on the hometown giant’s uneasy relationship with its merchants
By Ryan Chittum Nov 27, 2012 at 06:50 AM
The Seattle Times has another good story on Amazon, this time reporting on the hometown giant's lopsided relationship with its... More
Audit Notes: not Fortune tellers; Foursquare, two million; Big Ten
The magazine’s picks for future Apple and Microsoft CEOs go awry immediately
By Ryan Chittum Nov 23, 2012 at 06:50 AM
Fortune peered into its crystal ball for the October 29 issue and came up with four "best bets" on who's... More
Audit Notes: the free model, Coulson and Brooks, another DOJ stunt
A musician writes a compelling business argument against Pandora
By Ryan Chittum Nov 21, 2012 at 06:50 AM
The free model isn't just a failure for newspapers. It doesn't work in music either, as this terrific Pitchfork piece... More
Rise Above, CNBC’s move into advocacy
Corporate America’s house organ starts an anti-political political campaign
By Ryan Chittum Nov 20, 2012 at 02:57 PM
Any time you see Wall Street CEOs and CNBC campaigning for what they call the common good, it's worth raising... More
Audit Notes: marginal taxes, a redesign for core readers, Murdoch
An NYT’s anecdote’s confusion goes uncorrected
By Ryan Chittum Nov 20, 2012 at 06:50 AM
The New York Times flubs some reporting on how investors and well off people are bracing for higher tax rates:... More
Audit Notes: hustled, Brauchli fallout, NYT’s Walmart impact
ProPublica connects the dots on a former Countrywide executive named in a DOJ lawsuit
By Ryan Chittum Nov 19, 2012 at 06:50 AM
ProPublica's Paul Kiel reports (with an assist from TheStreet) that the JPMorgan Chase executive in charge of its program to... More
Audit Notes: Papacare, Post problem, trade reporting
Forbes finds Papa John’s Obamacare math doesn’t add up
By Ryan Chittum Nov 16, 2012 at 03:08 AM
Papa John's CEO John Schnatter has been carping for some time that Obamacare will add 10 to 14 cents to... More
Marcus Brauchli’s impossible task
The Post’s ultimate problem is the business side, not the newsroom
By Ryan Chittum Nov 15, 2012 at 06:50 AM
I can't think of any editor whose last few years ran headlong into the financial collapse of the newspaper industry... More
Apples and oranges on Google and publishers
Print performance is bad enough without putting a thumb on the scale
By Ryan Chittum Nov 14, 2012 at 06:50 AM
Slate tells us that "Google ad revenue tops entire US print media industry" in the first six months of the... More
Audit Notes: WaPo on the Bain thing, deadbeat Forbes, hamster wheel
The Post’s revealing slip-up on the definition of swift-boating
By Ryan Chittum Nov 13, 2012 at 08:06 PM
The Washington Post apparently doesn't understand just how toxic Wall Street and its even more rapacious cousin, private equity—not popular... More
Audit Notes: Whinin’ Dimon, Elizabeth Warren, WSJ on Petraeus
JPMorgan CEO takes to CNBC for consolation
By Ryan Chittum Nov 13, 2012 at 06:50 AM
I got a chuckle from Mark Gongloff's Huffington Post piece on Jamie Dimon taking his anti-administration whining to the friendly... More
Context-free market reporting on a post-election dive
First-term bull market goes unmentioned after a November 7 stock dip
By Ryan Chittum Nov 12, 2012 at 06:50 AM
The stock market dive the day after President Obama was re-elected, dropping 320 points, or 2.4 percent. The Drudge Report,... More
Audit Notes: low-info billionaires, Trump the taker, Elizabeth Warren
Money apparently can’t buy a firm grip on reality
By Ryan Chittum Nov 9, 2012 at 06:50 AM
One of the things this election proved conclusively is that even billionaires can be low-information voters. Here's Bloomberg BusinessWeek on... More
WSJ gets lost in the weeds with the Romney campaign
A too-savvy take and flawed assumptions undermine some interesting reporting
By Ryan Chittum Nov 8, 2012 at 06:50 AM
The Wall Street Journal fronts an interesting but seriously flawed story this morning headlined "How Race Slipped Away From Romney."... More
Woman’s work - The twisted reality of an Italian freelancer in Syria
Sourcing Trayvon Martin ‘photos’ from stormfront - Not a good idea, Business Insider
Elizabeth Warren, the antidote to CNBC - The senator schools the talking heads on bank regulation
Art Laffer + PR blitz = press failure - The media types up the retail lobby’s propaganda
Reuters’s global warming about-face - A survey shows the newswire ran 50 percent fewer stories on climate change after hiring a “skeptic”
Barack Obama: ‘those old times aren’t coming back’
“It used to be there were local newspapers everywhere. If you wanted to be a journalist, you could really make a good living working for your hometown paper”
The Guardian’s editor opens up on Reddit
Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, answered questions in an Ask Me Anything
The (almost) lost speech of Justice Anthony Kennedy
How his insightful remarks about the Constitution inadvertently make the case for a Supreme Court “media pool”
Fox News sues TVEyes for copyright infringement
Says subscription service sells access to its content without permission nor compensation
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
ACEsTooHigh.com – Reporting on the science, education, and policy surrounding childhood trauma
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
